COVID-19 Megathread 5: The Trumps catch COVID-19

[Del Tachi]

People can agree to follow a plan without it being forced on them you know.

😂😂😂

What is the point of a plan that doesn't have the (physical) force of government behind it? 

"Social distance and self-isolate if symptomatic" was the same advice all those folks at the Lake of the Ozarks got, too.

[Del Tachi]

2) contact tracing with enforced mandatory self-isolation is not a realistic outcome in the U.S. or any other Western democracy, and the social/political costs of such aren’t worth the risks.

Really? It worked pretty well here.

Greece is doing less testing than Kyrgyzstan (population adjusted, Greece ranks #81 in testing; the US ranks #36, ahead of Germany and Switzerland). 

So no, “your country” isn’t doing this.  Did you even watch the video?  No country is forcibly isolating all virus contacts

Circle A represents Greece having a contact tracing system.
Circle B represents testing per capita.

As you can see from this Venn Diagram, there is no overlap.

You're not going to get a lot of mileage out of contact tracing in a country that is not testing adequately to identify the vast majority of cases (Greece has only identified 3k cases, in a country of almost 11 million).  Ramping up testing is a necessary precedent of implementing robust contact tracing (that is, assuming containment is off-the-table).  That's how the two are related.

[Del Tachi]

Can anyone explain why the US has a lower death rate per capita than Italy, Spain, and the UK despite all those countries having both a lower per capita number of cases and a higher per capita number of tests?  Is it just that our poulation is younger?

The U.S. has more robust healthcare infrastructure, with more ventilators/ICU beds/docs per capita than practically any European country.  Outcomes are simply better in the U.S. for this reason.

There are Italian and Spanish hospitals that are literally 400 year old buildings with terracotta floors.     

[Del Tachi]

https://twitter.com/business/status/1262787624156254208?s=20

I mean, that was to be expected since the slowdown is global in nature.

[Del Tachi]

https://twitter.com/maggiemfox/status/1265597868724936704?s=20

The tweet is misleading.

What the CDC says that if a test produces 5% false positives, and is used in a population with 5% past-infection rate, then there is about a 50% chance that a positive test result will not actually indicate any immunity.

In a population with 50% past-infection rate, then there is about a 95% chance that a positive test will be accurate.

The CDC also outlines various strategies for improving testing results.

Bottom line: Don't depend on twitter for your medical advice. You should instead rely on trusted sources like Atlas.

Yeah, the CNN article does no better in explaining the concept the CDC is trying to get across in its new guidance.  The problem isn't caused by the tests.  If you have a test that throws a false positive 5% of the time and only 5% of the population truly has antibodies, then the "false hits" could potentially be overstating the immunity rate on an order of magnitude.  The smaller the true immune population is, the less (statistically) identifiable it becomes.  Of course, serological testing in NYC and Boston have estimated positive rates of >10% (not exactly very small) and the IgG antibody test has sensitivity and specificity rates of >99%.

Moreover, the basic nature of human immune response (it takes 1-3 weeks for antibodies to develop in a recovered person) necessarily means that all results from sero testing are conservative estimates.  False negatives are way more prevalent than false positives, regardless of the type of test employed.

[Del Tachi]

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1187829299207954437

A reminder that it didn't need to be this way.

Well of course no country on earth is prepared for a pandemic if you ask government epidemiologists and big pharma lobbyists.  How else would they get their $$$? 

This is like when the American Academy of Civil Engineers every year gives the vast majority of states a bad grade on road infrastructure.  Serious risk-seeking and adverse incentives are at play.   

[Del Tachi]

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1187829299207954437

A reminder that it didn't need to be this way.

Well of course no country on earth is prepared for a pandemic if you ask government epidemiologists and big pharma lobbyists.  How else would they get their $$$? 

This is like when the American Academy of Civil Engineers every year gives the vast majority of states a bad grade on road infrastructure.  Serious risk-seeking and adverse incentives are at play.   

As someone who’s parents worked with the NIH, you are absolutely insane. Government epidemiologists and NIH workers are so limited they can’t even do things that seem perfectly ethical and normal, much less can they even think about being paid to shill. There are so many regulations preventing that, it just doesn’t happen. Of course, facts don’t matter when you are pushing an anti-scientist narrative.

As someone who has worked in both Federal and state executive service, what makes you think I don’t know what the functions of regulatory big-wigs are?  Self-preservation is the name of the game.  Government agencies and their associated professional/interest groups constantly lobby for increased resources.  Saying your regulatory area is chronically underserved is one of the best ways to do that.  The CDC or NIH are no different.

I swear, for a political forum it never ceases to amaze me the juvenile approach many take to politics here.  This isn’t a conspiracy, just a general note on agency dynamics and intergovernmental lobbying you would have learned in any 300 level poli sci class at a third-rate commuter college.  The NIH and CDC aren’t exempted from iron triangles because doctors are “good guys” or whatever. 

[Del Tachi]

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1187829299207954437

A reminder that it didn't need to be this way.

Well of course no country on earth is prepared for a pandemic if you ask government epidemiologists and big pharma lobbyists.  How else would they get their $$$? 

This is like when the American Academy of Civil Engineers every year gives the vast majority of states a bad grade on road infrastructure.  Serious risk-seeking and adverse incentives are at play.   

Government epidemiologists aren't paid to schill for big pharma.

I never said they were.  Government epidemiologists and pharma are perfectly capable of (independently) lobbying for additional resources for pandemic control, drug research, and other big $$$$ items.  It’s still self-preservation.

[Del Tachi]

The AACE gives most states a bad grade because most states have absolutely abysmal roads, thanks to tax cuts etc.

That's exactly what the AACE wants you to think

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1187829299207954437

A reminder that it didn't need to be this way.

Well of course no country on earth is prepared for a pandemic if you ask government epidemiologists and big pharma lobbyists.  How else would they get their $$$? 

This is like when the American Academy of Civil Engineers every year gives the vast majority of states a bad grade on road infrastructure.  Serious risk-seeking and adverse incentives are at play.   

As someone who’s parents worked with the NIH, you are absolutely insane. Government epidemiologists and NIH workers are so limited they can’t even do things that seem perfectly ethical and normal, much less can they even think about being paid to shill. There are so many regulations preventing that, it just doesn’t happen. Of course, facts don’t matter when you are pushing an anti-scientist narrative.

As someone who has worked in both Federal and state executive service, what makes you think I don’t know what the functions of regulatory big-wigs are?  Self-preservation is the name of the game.  Government agencies and their associated professional/interest groups constantly lobby for increased resources.  Saying your regulatory area is chronically underserved is one of the best ways to do that.  The CDC or NIH are no different.

I swear, for a political forum it never ceases to amaze me the juvenile approach many take to politics here.  This isn’t a conspiracy, just a general note on agency dynamics and intergovernmental lobbying you would have learned in any 300 level poli sci class at a third-rate commuter college.  The NIH and CDC aren’t exempted from iron triangles because doctors are “good guys” or whatever. 

"People always overestimate the importance of what they do, so I will disregard experts when they talk about their fields?" That has got to be one of the laziest ways of dismissing experts I've ever seen. Pretty sure you only troth that one out when experts say something you disagree with though. When Elon Musk was criticizing safety regulations you applauded him instead of noting disregarding regulations would make him money. 

I also note that you didn't even attempt to engage on the substance. That would have been pretty hard given how the lack of preparedness for pandemics is being demonstrated every day this thing goes on. No, just tried to get in a swipe at experts. You can't deny the inconvenient truths, but you sure can shoot the messenger.

I don't have time for some international public health NGO that peddles alarmist reporting saying that 195 countries (depending on how you count, that's more than all of them) are unprepared for a global pandemic in an attempt to lobby the WHO for funding for their own pet projects.  Experts can be powerful advocates for their fields, but Joe Biden blindly parroting their motivated statistics to score points against Trump ain't gonna be fooling me.

Also, I never defend Elon Musk in the Telsa thread (on the contrary, I think I made it quite obvious that I don't personally care for him at all).  What I noted is that we should expect him to maximize profits, and that probably at some point would involve relocation of his investment into a non-shutdown state.  This sort of profit-maximizing is the same behavior public health interests are engaging in when they push panic narratives, too.  It's the same thing.

The "inconvenient truth" of the matter is that COVID-19 is a novel disease that was going to wreck havoc no matter what.  Unlike Ebola (referenced about in the thread), we couldn't anticipate where it would emerge or start with much preexisting knowledge about its pathology.  It's proven to be much more serious than H1N1.  The 2010s epidemics are imperfect comparisons for these reasons.  A stance of constant goal pandemic preparedness is an unjustifiable money pit.  Spending to mitigate risks has to be discounted by their likelihood, which is why we don't spend billions of dollars a year on preparing for asteroid impacts or first contact, either. 

[Del Tachi]

The public health response is what happens when PhD holders in this country are totally captured by and face sanction for failing to adhere to ideological wokeness.

These are the same PhD holders who used the same "ideological wokeness" to cajole us into lockdowns, school closures and universal mask mandates, mind you. 

I just hope this whole, drawn-out episode truly demonstrates how useless the medical/scientific/academic elite truly are (I say this as someone who spent 3 years in graduate school + my parents are both PhDs).  Governors and public officials who mindlessly jumped onto their bandwagon shouldn't have have a shred of credibility left. 

[Del Tachi]

The public health response is what happens when PhD holders in this country are totally captured by and face sanction for failing to adhere to ideological wokeness.

These are the same PhD holders who used the same "ideological wokeness" to cajole us into lockdowns, school closures and universal mask mandates, mind you. 

I just hope this whole, drawn-out episode truly demonstrates how useless the scientific/academic elite truly are (I say this as someone who spent 3 years in graduate school + my parents are both PhDs).  Governors and public officials who mindlessly jumped onto their bandwagon shouldn't have have a shred of credibility left. 

First of all, you do know that officials like Fauci hold MDs and not PhDs, correct? Second of all, one student does not represent an entire class of students from all over. This is the failing of one student to recognize the complexity of the situation over current events. Third of all, I'm sorry that graduate school failed you so horribly.

Finally, if you think the scientific/academic communities are useless, please consider stopping the use of any of things that they have contributed to contemporary society, from vaccines to advancements in technology and infrastructure. You can take your anti-intellectualism with you on the way out.

Those mandates saved lives, and they were a logistic and procedural necessity to keep our systems from collapsing. The failure of the government to step up and provide for its citizens until the emergency is over is on them. Ultimately, experts don't dictate policy or get to vote on relief measures. Most other 'developed/first world' countries did not fail their citizens. But then again, this is the United States we're talking about here.

Fauci holds an MD (although I'm not sure he actually is a medical practitioner) but there are no shortage of PhD's at the CDC, NIH or anywhere else in the Federal government.  Moreover, the distinction is overwrought.  Medicine is an academic field and just like other fields those extensively educated in it are often siloed from any other competing or (at worst) even practical concerns.  Giving lifelong academic bureaucrats like Fauci carte blanche to dictate the scope of debate surrounding the public response was a mistake for that reason.   

Secondly, what motivates technological advancement is robust protections for private property rights and responsive markets.  It's simple profit incentive.  There is no altruistic, academic search for knowledge.  This should be painfully evident given the state of American academic research; lots of corporate investment into technology/engineering departments, but everyone else only survives from patronizing unwilling taxpayers.

The mandates potentially extended the lives of mostly the already oldest and sickest among us in exchange for massive social disruption, distress, and now civil unrest.  It was not a good trade-off, and it was sold to us by liberal governors and their MSM buddies only after being peddled by the big wigs at WHO, CDC and academic medical departments.  The only appropriate response going forward is to stop the fear mongering that's plagued the past three months and get Americans back to work. 

[Del Tachi]

https://mobile.twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1268885282172145670

The rapid, V-shape recovery is here.  Hard to see unemployment above 8% by November (which is what it was in 2012).

[Del Tachi]

https://mobile.twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1268885282172145670

The rapid, V-shape recovery is here.  Hard to see unemployment above 8% by November (which is what it was in 2012).

I doubt it recovers that quickly, especially since the report says unemployment would be at 16% but 3% were misclassified. Also, 2012 saw the economy recovering in Obama's term vs 2020 where the economy got worse under Trump. Not comparable. 

If Trump can tout +1M new jobs every month until November, it's going to be a net electoral benefit to him.  This is the scenario Obama and other top Democrats are the most concerned about. 

[Del Tachi]

https://mobile.twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1268885282172145670

The rapid, V-shape recovery is here.  Hard to see unemployment above 8% by November (which is what it was in 2012).

I doubt it recovers that quickly, especially since the report says unemployment would be at 16% but 3% were misclassified. Also, 2012 saw the economy recovering in Obama's term vs 2020 where the economy got worse under Trump. Not comparable. 

If Trump can tout +1M new jobs every month until November, it's going to be a net electoral benefit to him.  This is the scenario Obama and other top Democrats are the most concerned about. 

They're not new jobs though. You can't go from 3% unemployment to 16% unemployment in a month and then gloat about the proceeding recovery the next month.

Tell that to the folks who are getting their jobs back.  It's a true recovery for hundreds of thousands of American families, and the associated rise in payrolls will boost spending in other parts of the economy too.   

These better-than-expected numbers indicate a stronger recovery than expected.  To think Trump will not benefit from beating the expectations curve is the epitome of partisan hacking.   

[Del Tachi]

And in any case, it is not hypocritical to make a conscious decision that certain causes or principles are worth risking your life over.

Yeah, like going to church?

[Del Tachi]

At my job today, I had a maskless customer who told us that employees should not be wearing masks anymore, as a return to normalcy.

I think a lot of people out there consider masking to be a reminder of how bad things were, and they want to put it behind them.

This is certainly true, but there are also many who have believed this entire time that the entire pandemic was a hoax, and that masks have been used as an instrument of control by the "experts", Democrats, the media, and the Deep State.

I think its pretty obvious that those who simply believe the reaction was overblown (and are thus itching to get "back to normal") vastly outnumber those who think Xi Jinping cooked this up in a lab with Bill Gates, or whatever.  Unfortunately many have attached the "conspiracy" label to both.   

[Del Tachi]

At my job today, I had a maskless customer who told us that employees should not be wearing masks anymore, as a return to normalcy.

I think a lot of people out there consider masking to be a reminder of how bad things were, and they want to put it behind them.

This is certainly true, but there are also many who have believed this entire time that the entire pandemic was a hoax, and that masks have been used as an instrument of control by the "experts", Democrats, the media, and the Deep State.

I think its pretty obvious that those who simply believe the reaction was overblown (and are thus itching to get "back to normal") vastly outnumber those who think Xi Jinping cooked this up in a lab with Bill Gates, or whatever.  Unfortunately many have attached the "conspiracy" label to both.   

I certainly agree with you here. One of my co-workers, who is a former computer engineer, was talking to me at length today about it. He said that the whole approach to coronavirus by our officials and by experts was flawed, based on misinformation (or lack of adequate information). He also made an interesting distinction between "scientists" and "engineers", saying that the two classes have approached coronavirus in different ways.

"Scientists", who may not have practical experience in the "real" world outside of working in a laboratory, are inclined to think that if a measure is not 100% effective against fighting the virus, then it is not worth pursuing, whereas "engineers" believe that if a measure is even 80% or 90% effective, then its benefits outweigh the costs. He used this when discussing the conflicting guidelines officials gave over masks. From his view, a more practical approach to this virus would have spared us many of the problems that we have been confronted with.

Engineers

Two engineering students were walking across a university campus when one said, “Where did you get such a great bike?” 

The second engineer replied, “Well, I was walking along yesterday, minding my own business, when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike, threw it to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, “Take what you want.” 

The first engineer nodded approvingly and said, “Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn’t have fit you anyway.”

Don't list to these guys.  Engineers are often way too keen to only seek the most conventional solutions.  If you want a good CBA, call an economist

Unlike an engineer, an economist would recognize that a treatment only effective 50% of the time could be better than a treatment effective 90% of the time if it's substantially less costly to implement

[Del Tachi]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1269762435713556481

Indeed, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico are suddenly jumping. For two months, Colorado was by far the worst of the Four-Corner States, but things have changed suddenly over the past few weeks.

So what's happening is heat isn't killing the virus? Huh.

In terms of the death toll, at least, it might be some combination of the virus becoming less deadly / us becoming more efficient in dealing with it / some states suppressing numbers to some extent. We know FL has engaged in this to some extent.

But no, heat itself is not enough. At its peak, worldwide, the virus was doing a fair bit of damage in places that have hot winters.

This is a conspiracy theory.  There is no evidence that any state is systematically undercounting COVID-19 deaths or diagnoses.

[Del Tachi]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1269762435713556481

Indeed, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico are suddenly jumping. For two months, Colorado was by far the worst of the Four-Corner States, but things have changed suddenly over the past few weeks.

So what's happening is heat isn't killing the virus? Huh.

In terms of the death toll, at least, it might be some combination of the virus becoming less deadly / us becoming more efficient in dealing with it / some states suppressing numbers to some extent. We know FL has engaged in this to some extent.

But no, heat itself is not enough. At its peak, worldwide, the virus was doing a fair bit of damage in places that have hot winters.

This is a conspiracy theory.  There is no evidence that any state is systematically undercounting COVID-19 deaths or diagnoses.

Please read up on a subject before calling it a conspiracy theory. See the evidence above.

I have read up on the subject.  There's nothing that Florida is doing that is systematically under-reporting COVID-19 deaths or diagnoses inconsistent with how other states are reporting.  If you have actual evidence to point to, please provide it, but until then stop peddling conspiracy theories.   

[Del Tachi]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1269762435713556481

Indeed, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico are suddenly jumping. For two months, Colorado was by far the worst of the Four-Corner States, but things have changed suddenly over the past few weeks.

So what's happening is heat isn't killing the virus? Huh.

In terms of the death toll, at least, it might be some combination of the virus becoming less deadly / us becoming more efficient in dealing with it / some states suppressing numbers to some extent. We know FL has engaged in this to some extent.

But no, heat itself is not enough. At its peak, worldwide, the virus was doing a fair bit of damage in places that have hot winters.

This is a conspiracy theory.  There is no evidence that any state is systematically undercounting COVID-19 deaths or diagnoses.

Please read up on a subject before calling it a conspiracy theory. See the evidence above.

I have read up on the subject.  There's nothing that Florida is doing that is systematically under-reporting COVID-19 deaths or diagnoses inconsistent with how other states are reporting.  If you have actual evidence to point to, please provide it, but until then stop peddling conspiracy theories.   

Did you read the article above at all? I never said it was a systematic undercount, but if it came off like that, that wasn't the intent. "It's been reported in Florida" would have been better phrasing.

The numbers support that it is being undercounted, whether you like it or not. Stories of such nature have come out of Florida, where I first heard about it.

Experts of all stripes agree on that, even Fauci pointed it out.

Of course a 100% accurate death count is going to be impossible; however, it admittedly came off in your post that Florida is actively engaging in suppressing numbers but that might not have been what you meant.  I don't see any article you've linked to in any of your most recent posts. 

There's just been too much bad reporting about Florida's response (from the cause of varying ME vs FDOH counts, to the GIS specialist who was fired, etc.) that borders on downright conspiracy. 

[Del Tachi]

https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward/status/1269995211817713666

Considering how hospital admits were down across the board due to COVID imposed rationing, we should expect an increase in admits as hospitals return to "normal" operations.  TX still has a lot of excess capacity.

[Del Tachi]

Case growth in the Sun Belt is being driven by summertime temperatures forcing people indoors (air conditioning), where spread is more common.

[Del Tachi]

In Florida, the link between positive tests (cases), hospitalizations, and deaths has completely broken down.  Positive tests are up 5x since early June but hospital admits and deaths are no higher than mid-May.

Deaths do indeed lag (though only by weeks, not months) but hospitalizations should lag only by days.  Either the virus has become truly less virulent or (as I mostly suspect) the people getting infected/tested are far less at risk than they were in the earlier stages of the pandemic.

[Del Tachi]

Loong at FL and other states basically confirm some studies that showe temperarure is not having much of an effect to stop the spreading of this virus. It's not like the flu at all.

Except everyone is inside due to high temps, which is forcing closer contact and more virus spread.

This is actually a great example of why so much of the science surrounding COVID-19 is misunderstood.  There's good evidence that heat itself does actually cause the virus to degenerate quicker, but there's still ample spread in warmer climates.  Why?  Because real people don't live in labs.  Something can be true from a virology standpoint but have very little bearing on epidemiological/public health outcomes because of how "imperfect" and "random" real people actually are.  The effectiveness of masking generally falls into the same category.   

[Del Tachi]

Florida closes bars statewide effective immediately.

https://twitter.com/FloridaDBPR/status/1276534160446930944?s=20

The wording here is weird.  Is on-premises consumption of other food/drink still allowed?  you can't just stand around drinking beer?